By JIM TAYLOR -- Calgary Sun
They trotted out Sting to sing something unintelligible and Ray Charles to do America the Beautiful.
They resurrected Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf for a steely-eyed remembrance of the Gulf War. They filled five hours of pre-game with hype and smoke and assurances that this was the greatest thing to happen in this millennium and quite possibly the one that preceded it.
In Canada, the Brewery-whose-name-escapes-me Bowl took us coast-to-coast for reports from interchangeable women with desperate what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here-and-what-do-I-say-next looks to pose in front of pneumatic sets of NFL cheerleaders imported to inhale and bend at the waist and assure us that boy, the party was on and there was food and everything and wasn't this FUN???
One announcer assured us that the names of the players on the field would live forever. Another assured us that one team "is executing very good."
They assured us that the new 30-camera panoramic camera was going to revolutionize sports coverage, then couldn't find a camera to give a clear view of a scrum on the sidelines.
They did everything they could and a lot of things they shouldn't have bothered with, all aimed at convincing the segment of the world that cared that Super Bowl XXXV was a spectacle and potentially a battle of Titans, which would be retold around campfires in centuries to come.
It didn't work. Because, once again, the game was a stinker. To be fair, not all Super Bowls have been lousy. Just most of them.
No one can say this one didn't live up to its outside-the-host-TV-network billing: It was going to be a defensive waltz of the elephants and it was.
But the Super Bowl is supposed to be the NFL's big show and watching defences stack running backs like cabin kindling and mediocre quarterbacks self-destructing is not entertainment.
Part of it is pure physics and a problem the NFL has too long ignored: The damned field is too small.
Once, a 300-lb. player was a freak. Now everyone has at least one -- and they're mobile. Defensive backs are the size of linebackers, linebackers as big as '70s guards. Everyone is quick. And they're still playing on the same postage stamp.
Great quarterbacks throwing to gifted receivers can still put points up in boxcars. But somehow, with all respect to Kerry Collins and Trent Dilfer and the obstacles they've overcome, the best football league in the universe somehow managed to produce Super Bowl finalists who couldn't be first-string on most of the teams they beat to get there.
People who call themselves football purists will insist that it was a great game because anybody who don't like snot-snortin' tackles and big guys swattin' the bejeazuz out of each other just don't know nuthin' about the game. They will point out that three touchdowns were scored in the space of 36 seconds, two on an exchange of kickoff returns.
But midway in the third quarter, the Ravens and Giants had already set a Super Bowl record for most punts by both teams.
As a spectacle, this was a game only one man outside of Baltimore could love. His name is Vince McMahon. His XFL opens next weekend. This was the best ad he could have run and it didn't cost him a cent.
